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The Dr Who Thread

I figured this forum needs a Dr Who discussion thread.

I picked it up a while ago and have seen almost all the serials since the show started again. I have seen series 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 so far (first Dr who I knew was matt smith). Gotta say, when I picked up this series I never expected to enjoy it so damn much. I would catch a reference to the show every now and then and just think "wow, who would ever watch that?" because it just seemed so absurd. My only real disappointment so far is that there hasn't been an arc in which Smith's Dr who faces the master. I would love to see how that plays out (tennant's doctor against the master was awesome).

Re: The Dr Who Thread

I haven't really seen any of the old doctors so far. For me it has just been eccleston, tennant and smith up to now. Of the 3 my favorite so far is tennant (which is not surprising) although smith is IMO pretty close to him. Well, I am halfway through the seventh series and I do admit smith is getting a little tedius. He is too arrogant at times and it somehow it seems like the doctor should appear cleverer.

Some time ago I read an article about how each doctor transformation was in a way a progression of what the one before was. Kinda like the transformation helped him adapt to his circumstances or something. Perhaps it makes sense in the regard that each actor basically picks up after the previous one and has to add his own thing. So you start with the 9th doctor who was a traumatized by the time war.... Then he got happier and fell in love with a young girl and when he regenerated he turned into tennant's doctor who was more human, jolly and younger. So then with all his victories, failures and the complications of love tennant turned into smith's doctor who was more arrogant, perhaps more alien, and his reaction to a human's advances would be an outright rejection. Wonder how the 12th will be....

One thing I would have loved to see with smith's doctor is him facing the master.... Its a shame barely anyone from tennant's time made an appearance. No jack, no jones or mickey.... At least jack would have deserved an appearance here IMO. Smith's doctor was the one more prone to anger and outright emotional responses, him exacting his wrath over the master would have been worth seeing. Then again it would depend on what happened once the drumming stopped....

Ok, finally caught up with the seventh series... Now just waiting for the day of the doctor and the christmass special... I really hope the master turns out to be behind everything this time around. And I wouldn't mind seeing the face of boe. I wonder what sort of circumstances reunites the two doctors with their supposedly unreachable companions.

I admit though, I really thought there would be a couple more people into this series in the forum.

Gotta say, I enjoyed it although I feel the plot kinda went around the bush too much. I mean, you have the time war thingies going around in the background and then you have the zygon plot and those two are unrelated. Then you have the 10 and 11th joining the war doctor almost randomly... Anyways, I loved the fact that the time lords are alive. Ever since the new dalek paradigm I felt that the series needed to bring them back (not yet but they will be). The daleks are a massive force with incredibly advance technology and before only the timelords, one of the more advanced races out there, could deal with them and even they lost. I don't see how the plot can make a lot of sense in the long run without there being a force with similar military strength to balance them out. Even now we just have to wonder what the new paradigm is doing considering their goal is usual total destruction. The master's fate was supposedly unclear... I wonder if back when we last saw him he was sucked into the time war and once the timelords are back so will he?

Re: The Dr Who Thread

So it's taken me a while, but I just saw the Christmas special, which serves as Matt Smith's final appearance as the Doctor. It was good, one of the few episodes of his incarnation of Doctor that I had seen; always been a fun of his comedic deliveries and wit; which was all seen here.

I think in the end though, there will always been comparisons between his bowing out episode and David Tennant's; which isn't really fair but thats how it is. For me personally, I preferred Tennant's. Maybe because I followed that whole story through the years, or just because how sad the actual episode was.

Re: The Dr Who Thread

As far as good byes go I would actually prefer smith's. Tennants was very sad and seeing him visit his companions was awesome however it was always kinda off for me. It ends with him saying "I don't want to go" which is perhaps consistent with his incarnation of the doctor (which is described a couple of times as vain by the 11th) however it is a terrible good bye. It shows him as having things left to do, as if he had more stuff to tell, as if tennant was being kicked of the show for some reason. In turn smith gave an actual good bye, he made the point that change was necessary and inevitable and had to be embraced while at the same time cherishing the past. An awesome opening for cabaldi, which is better than what smith got from tennant's good bye. Its basically a "I don't want to go" vs "Hey, whats to come is awesome, here is cabaldi for you". I do prefer tennant's doctor over smiths however I do think a lot of it had to do with the difference in writing and perhaps the fact that tennant's was a more "human" doctor that got deeply emotionally involved with his companions while smith was always a more alien doctor that only actually had a romantic relationship with river, fellow derange alien psycopath (perhaps one of the best characters in the series altogether, but completely inhuman and unrelatable for the most part).

is just why the doctor was able to release so much regeneration energy. I guess it could be the side effect of receiving an entire new cycle of regenerations however it still does not necessarily add up. I was thinking, everyone in his homeworld probably loves the doctor... so what if to make the new regeneration possible and give him the power to beat all his enemies everyone in galleyfrey gave him one life? And the energy he used to beat the daleks would be the result of that. Of course he only ended up having 12 more regenerations though.

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Well, for anyone who cares. It seems like the new doctor will be a rather darker one. It makes sense in a way, the last two doctors were rather cheerie safe for their moments of grief or pain when remembering the time war. Seeing that this doctor was born right after fighting his longest war (800 years or so) it makes sense that he would be somewhat like the 9th as far as being dark and whatnot. One thing that seems weird though is that the doctor consistently calls himself old... Each incartnation can last over 1000 years from what we have seen and perhaps spending the entire time fighting a war by yourself is not ideal for aging. So the doctor is 2000 years old (although I don't get the impression his time fighting the time war is accounted for in his alleged age) but he has already gone through 14 regenerations... It seems like most time lords would be at about their 3 regeneration at this point. For me it is weird that the doctor would be old by time lord standards. I guess he has spent too much time with humans?

Re: The Dr Who Thread

Huh, I didn't know we had a Doctor Who thread.

Well, I'm normally a pretty big fan but I'm not sure about this season. I don't mind Capaldi's curmudgeonly doctor. In fact, I feel like I could get to like that. It's just Moffats way of running the series that I don't like. The episodes always have huge logical holes and don't seem very concerned at all with making sense.

Russell T Davies, who was showrunner for all of Tennet's run and the first season of Matt Smith's, had a style that just seems very different to Moffats; and I definitely preferred his approach.

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Actually it was moffat who was behind the 5th series, davies retired along tennant. I agree though, Davies definitely made a better series than moffat. Moffat did ok for the 5th and 6th series but I found his episodes tedious during the 7th... They should have replaced moffat as soon as smith left, that way they had a new doctor and a new writter. I like what capaldi is doing although I don't get the impression we are getting much of a chance to see what the new doctor is like. Well, we know he sarcastic and gloomier, which works, but IMO he has still had little room for character development.

Re: The Dr Who Thread

Originally Posted by kkck

Actually it was moffat who was behind the 5th series, davies retired along tennant. I agree though, Davies definitely made a better series than moffat. Moffat did ok for the 5th and 6th series but I found his episodes tedious during the 7th... They should have replaced moffat as soon as smith left, that way they had a new doctor and a new writter. I like what capaldi is doing although I don't get the impression we are getting much of a chance to see what the new doctor is like. Well, we know he sarcastic and gloomier, which works, but IMO he has still had little room for character development.

One of the big things that helped out the series recently was the talent he had to work with. Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill had extremely good chemistry and the series succeeded on that for alone for a while. They were just likable and fun. The stories were never really getting it done.

But i suppose some of that was sometimes offset by him inheriting Alex Kingston, whom I always thought was a bad casting choice. She's a fine actress but she's also just too old for her part(Currently 51). Her chemistry wasn't so bad with Tennant(Currently 43) because she only had 8 years on him but with Matt Smith(Currently 31) she had 20 on him and I thought it showed. She would have made a much better love interest for Capaldi's (Currently 56) Doctor.

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Really? I always loved good old river.... All of her appearances... I have been wondering how she will be brought back to do something with the new doctor. It will be an interesting clash seeing her interact with a doctor who is basically a polar opposite to the 11th who is the one she is most familiar with. It is true it looked a tad weird to see the doctor with an older woman although I never got the impression there was a lack of chemistry there. I wonder if missy is another incarnation of river song somehow.... Perhaps the timelords didn't just give the doctor another regeneration cycle. What she is doing does kinda look like people are being "saved" after all.

Clara is indeed not that interesting a character, at least not past the whole impossible girl thing. She gets things done but she does not seem to have anything special going for her. I miss donna noble... In a way interaction with the doctor should be difficult for normal girls, smith and capaldi have been playing progressively less "human", less relateable doctors. It feels like there should be a foil between them for their interaction to make sense, something to connect clara or future companions to the doctor. I don't get the impression there is much chemistry between them. Moffat should make this whole series, its been clear since the previous one that he has the plot mostly planned out. Heck, capaldi even appeared at the day of the doctor which suggest that whatever is happening in this arc will end up connecting to gallafrey being saved.

The paternoster gang is fun although I am not sure I am a fan of them appearing so much. Their appearance during the name of the doctor felt kinda forced... Maybe it is not them but rather the tone of the series around them.

Re: The Dr Who Thread

I was never a fan of her during Smith's run. My favorite of her episodes was actually her first episode during Tennet's run, the library one. Kinda doubt we'll see her again too since her whole storyline's big draw was supposed to be that her relationship with the doctor was backward in time. In other words that the last time she saw him was the first time he saw her and so forth. The flirtatious nature of her character just did not mesh with the massive apparent age difference to me. Her whole hook was that the first parts of her timeline were the later parts of her time in Smith's run. So she was supposed to be younger in those parts but she looked so clearly older.

Might just be a matter of taste but her character just didn't work for me. It seemed to me like an attempt to recapture what worked so well with Billie Piper's Rose Tyler but ultimately I didn't think it really succeeded.

That aside I'm curious how you'd rate the companions? Who do you think was the best and worst?

Re: The Dr Who Thread

Well, the library episodes were brilliant, quite frankly they are among my favorites... And it had Talulah Riley... To be honest I never really paid much attention to the age difference between the actors... it was not actually relevant to the context of the series.

The best companion for me? Not sure... To some extent it just might be amy pond although I think that is mostly because when I first saw the series she was the companion... Being the first one I ever saw for me she is kinda THE companion(also, redheads). On a more objective look I would definitely go for donna noble. She could actually outsass the 10th doctor lol. I was also a fan of how she did not want to bone endlessly with him. I could take rose being in love with him but then martha jones, the intelligent (also a doctor) companion turned out to be all about how she did not get to tennants groin. And then somehow she ended up being rambo. It seems a bit of a waste or a perfectly good brain. It makes sense for mickey to end like that, he was an idiot to begin with, but for martha? Donna was overall brilliant and had a great arc with funny and tragic moments alike. As for the worst... I don't think there is anyone I particularly dislike.... I guess it would be clara, she seems strangely less remarkable than rose. I guess rose was god or something for a moment at least. The impossible girl thing never really sat well with me.

Gotta say, I loved Dr who's last episode, listen. There was actual tension through it, I loved every second. I feel kinda ridiculous having criticized moffat's writing last week given how awesome the last episode was. If every episode was like this then capaldi would easily earn his spot as the best doctor every and whatnot lol. If only there had been a little humor in the episode it would have been a flawless 10. Can't wait for next week, it seems we are getting some missy action.